HNLMS Van Meerlant (ML 36) was a minelayer of the Royal Netherlands Navy

Royal Netherlands Navy

The Koninklijke Marine is the navy of the Netherlands. In the mid-17th century the Dutch Navy was the most powerful navy in the world and it played an active role in the wars of the Dutch Republic and later those of the Batavian Republic and the Kingdom of the Netherlands...

 built in the Gusto shipyard at Schiedam

Schiedam

Schiedam is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. It is part of the Rotterdam metropolitan area. The city is located west of Rotterdam, east of Vlaardingen and south of Delft...

 as part of the Douwe Aukes class

Douwe Aukes class minelayer

The Douwe Aukes class were minelayers of the Royal Netherlands Navy, named after the naval hero Douwe Aukes.The two ships were built at the Gusto shipyard in Schiedam...

.

Service

On the general mobilisation of the Dutch military on 28 August 1939, Van Meerlant was deployed to lay minefields, including ones at IJmuiden and the Hook of Holland. She sailed for the United Kingdom from Vlissingen alongside the gunboat Flores

Flores class sloops

The Flores class sloops, HNLMS Flores and Soemba were gunboats in the Royal Netherlands Navy during World War II. They were in several ways the most successful surface ships of the Dutch navy during the war....

, arriving on 18 May 1940. She was first stationed at Falmouth

Falmouth, Cornwall

Falmouth is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It has a total resident population of 21,635.Falmouth is the terminus of the A39, which begins some 200 miles away in Bath, Somerset....

, alongside her sister ship Douwe Aukes

HNLMS Douwe Aukes

HNLMS Douwe Aukes was a minelayer of the Royal Netherlands Navy. She was built in the Gusto shipyard at Schiedam as the lead ship of the Douwe Aukes class, and one of her early commanders was Eugène Lacomblé.-Second World War:...

and the Dutch ship Medusa. Later that year Van Meerlant was posted to Chatham and assigned to the Thames Local Defence Flotilla, responsible for maintaining the boom defences in the Thames Estuary

Thames Estuary

The Thames Mouth is the estuary in which the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea.It is not easy to define the limits of the estuary, although physically the head of Sea Reach, near Canvey Island on the Essex shore is probably the western boundary...

. On 14 March she was transferred to the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

, retaining her name. She was sunk on 4 June 1941 by a mine, with 42 hands killed.

Sources

• Mark, C. Schepen van de Koninklijke Marine in W.O. II Alkmaar: De Alk bv, 1997 94-103